What is at stake?
The city of Fresno could make good on a promise this week to help fund a commercial kitchen for its community of mobile food vendors, nearly three years after officials first pledged an investment.
The city of Fresno could make good on a promise this week to help fund a commercial kitchen for its mobile food vendors, nearly three years after officials first pledged an investment.
Council members Miguel Arias and Luis Chavez on Monday announced a $700,000 grant to the Fresno public health organization Cultiva La Salud, which will go before the full council for approval Thursday. The allocation would support the commercial kitchen that Cultiva plans to open on Fresno Street, just south of Highway 180.
City leaders said they see the kitchen as a “one-stop shop” where the city’s growing population of mobile food vendors can prepare food to meet health orders, get help obtaining permits and strategize for healthier menu planning.
“These are hard-working individuals trying to make ends meet,” says Veva Islas, executive director of Cultiva La Salud, “so they can afford to send their children to college one day so they can pay their bills and keep their lights on and keep their houses.”
A commercial kitchen was one of many requests from the city’s mobile food vendors after a street vendor, Lorenzo Perez, was shot on the job in 2021.
But finding a viable location for the kitchen has been a struggle over the past three years, Cultiva and city leaders said Monday, delaying the project and changing expected municipal funding.
“Unfortunately, it’s called Budget 101,” Arias said
To date, the city has allocated approximately $1.1 million for Cultiva’s kitchen and resources for the vendors it works with, between the recently announced $700,000 grant and the $500,000 the city previously allocated for security cameras and other technical support for mobile food vendors.
Arias said he hopes this is just the beginning of Fresno’s investments in an important industry for the city.
“What better way to invest in our local economy and our local residents by helping hundreds of them with such a small investment of $1.1 million to date,” he said, “an investment that I hope continues to be a down payment for the entire mobile food vendor industry.”
Finally a commercial kitchen
After several previous locations the city looked to for the commercial kitchen fell through, Cultiva La Salud decided earlier this year to instead take out a loan for the building that will become the commercial kitchen.
Even then, Islas said they still had a ways to go when it came to seeking additional funding to see the project through.
Monday’s announcement marks a follow-up to the end of the city.
Maria De León, owner of Tamales y Antojitos La Promesa and a member of Fresno’s Food Vendor Association, said Monday she is grateful to see another vendor space opening in the city.
Other kitchen rental companies average $50 an hour, De León told reporters in Spanish.
Cultiva has committed to keeping costs as low as possible for sellers who use its kitchen.
Islas said Monday that as a member of the Fresno-Merced Future of Food, or F3, coalition, some F3 dollars could help subsidize some of the costs for vendors to use the kitchen.
“We don’t have an exact cost at this point,” she said, “but we plan to make it very affordable for them.”
Financing the commercial kitchen
Islas said opening the kitchen will cost a total of about $3 million.
So far, they’ve been able to fund just over half of that through a combination of Cultiva’s own savings, philanthropy and public funds.
The city of Fresno is contributing $1.1 million, or about a third of the cost, Arias said.
The $700,000 comes from the latest funding from Fresno’s American Rescue Plan Act, he added.
As for the project’s timeline, Islas said there is no definitive opening date yet.
The plan is to tentatively begin demolition of the existing building later this year or early next year and then begin construction.
They hope to demolish most of the existing building, Islas said, to transform it into a two-story building with a kitchen and training center on the first floor and offices for Cultiva La Salud on the second floor.
